Jezebel.com lumps GC feminists in with the alt-right

Seventy six children in one school, in Brighton, identifying as trans.

Wow, I thought DSDs school was bad, with 5 so far in her year all deciding they are transboys (all in the same friendship clique also) and one 'transgirl' so far 'coming out' but has since been excluded (long story short, he was clearly jumping on the bandwagon and had previous for dodgy behaviour towards girls but was allowed a very short time of being in the girls loos and such anyway despite previous form )

76 in one school..yeah clearly just small changes because social acceptance is going up. No social contagion and bandwagon jumping to see here. Nope, not at all.

I’m talking about hidden conditions. There is so much about the human body and mind that we haven’t even begun exploring, I don’t know how it can be shut down with a blasé attitude.

I’m perfectly willing to accept that trans people are suffering a mental illness or an intersection of fragile mental health and a toxic social context created by porn, inequality and anxiety about climate change.

But the idea that there is some innate sense of being a man or being a woman based on some amorphous gender essence is nonsense.

I am a woman because I am biologically female. Had I been born in a male body, I would be a man. It’s really that simple. Beyond biology is how your personality interests with your social environment.

The thing is, humans are binary in biological terms, we are sexually dimorphic because we are mammals. That’s material reality.

I believe the idea that if you don’t feel like a man, you must be a woman is a failure of logic. Since the only other category available is the other sex, the assumption is that this “not this sex” feeling must mean the individual experiencing the crisis is of the other sex.

The categories of masculine and feminine are socially constructed. Fluttering eyelashes or a loud voice are not intrinsically male or female; it’s just in this cultural context they are considered female or male. There is no biological reality intrinsic to pink or blue or skirts and trousers, that’s about culture.

A more rational approach, which is what radfems argue, is the deconstruction of those gendered categories.

It’s instructive that so many of the TRAs are middle-aged, white men with some resources. That is the group who have the most to lose by deconstructing gender categories, (and hence male privilege). It’s why they are enabled by other men. Men wearing dresses and pretending to be women are no threat to the patriarchy. Men questioning the cultural construction of masculinity; yeah, dangerous that.

In any event, constructing public policy on the shaky theory that there might be some unknown and unmeasurable hidden condition, seems foolish at best and at worst a threat to reality.

4000% is absolutely insane and there simply has to be many more reasons at play than simply 'its more accepted now'

Seventy six children in one school, in Brighton, identifying as trans.

Ten girls in the same year, coming out as boys, simultaneously mind you, at a girls' school in London.

No doubt it's just a huge coincidence...

Saying that the numbers are increasing due to media etc is interesting, for example between 2015-2017 the number of people identifying as gay/lesbian/bi increased .3%, that’s quite a big jump in terms of numbers in only 2 years.

Lots of people lived in the closet for years for fear of what people may think. Is it not logical that as society becomes more accepting, more people come ‘out’ rather than the numbers increasing?

I would take this as a reason if it was a jump such as 0.2%, which as you say is a large jump in 2 years. However, its something like a 4000% increase in kids saying they are trans...which surely, if 0.2% is a big increase, 4000% is absolutely insane and there simply has to be many more reasons at play than simply 'its more accepted now'

I think a lot of people like me will have moved away from the GC movement since the ‘USA incident’

I think you might be quite mistaken. See, most people realise that Posie is like, on person with her own mind and free to do whatever she likes, I mean, I don't think that she even 'IDs' as a radfem does she? I am sure shes more from the 'free speech' side of things. So when one person does something some disagree with, why on earth would that change peoples beliefs about the actual subject? I find such thinking rather odd tbh. Its very similar to the many people who will claim 'I was a feminist until I saw a woman posting that she actually hates all men, so now I am not a feminist as thats nasty'. Its just, strange.

And people shouldn't really find it odd that many feminists refused to publically denounce Posie for doing what she chose to do. Why on earth should they? And why are some people so invested in getting people to do this kind of thing? Reminds me of when a couple of posters got a bee in their bonnets about her fundraiser and would pop up on most threads being all 'what about Posie taking all your money and doing nothing?!', who oddly went quite silent when the AHF campaign was so sucessful

Emos were all the the thing about 15 years ago when I was at school. I also remember everyone suddenly coming out as bisexual after that Tattoo song. Obviously some people actually were but most of us had an awkward snog or two then went back to being boring and straight.

My daughter isn't even 1 yet. I wonder what "the thing" will be in 15 years time. I can't think of anything worse than this gender pick-and-mix nightmare but I'm sure society will find a way to out do itself again. Makes me feel very unwell to think about it.

They claim to, but I think it's a combination of a youth fad, confusion about gender stereotypes and sex roles and comorbid psychological issues

Five/ten years ago maybe they would have been Emos? You used to see large groups of young Emos hanging around in various spots around the city. I don't see that anymore.

Not going with Lang. Her food likes are disgusting

Oi oi Dog.

It's classic "left see women as public property, right see women as private property".

I suspect that a "victory" on this issue will come at the expense of us being shunted back much closer to the "private property" end of things and we'll have to start again fighting our way back to the middle. Maybe one day both sides will stop seeing us as property altogether.

Also, "ctrl-left" as an opposite to "alt-right" is excellent.

In short, I personally think it's entirely possible that transgenderism has a biological basis. Other psychological conditions also do. What I don't believe is that means that they actually are women (or men).

I agree too. The right are trying to erase women’s rights, the left are just trying to erase women.

Agree, Sophocles.

Also, while the alt-right is terrifying, I am no bigger fan of the ctrl-left. I don’t like either flavour of authoritarianism as neither of them are friends of women.

Cracking post, grabthar.

It’s not feminisms first time at the rodeo of (superficially) aligning with the Christian Right. We’ve been here before with porn and prostitution in the eighties and nineties. I was ok with strategic alliances then, and I’m ok with them now. Do I get my share of the loot now? Cause I’ve had nothing to date. Does Big T*RF have as much money to chuck about as Big Pharma?

There might well be some kind of biological propensity for a dissociative condition. Or a personality that's not hard and fast.

But I have yet to see, or hear, a single transwoman who is not either AGP, or
who has not been heavily subjected to ingrained stereotypes/homophobia (apart from the obvious misogynistic, bullying bandwagon jumpers).

I might give the notion of a gendered brain more houseroom, if there was even the slightest evidence of it in any transwoman's behaviour. The lack of affinity for women is evident. And, yes, you can put it down to socialisation, but then that's what being a woman is, isn't it? The biology and the socialisation.

If you don't have female biology or female socialisation, but you do have male biology and male socialisation, then where on earth is the contraction???

And, of course, detransitioning people all tell variations of the same story. What else is there??

Strewth. This is getting old.

didn't take confounders into account (most notably sexuality).

Yes. In the studies which used mixed homo and het groups, the the homosexual brains were the only brains to have any structure similarities with women, the heterosexual MTF brains had no similarities to the control women's brains. Interestingly in the main study to do this a difference was found to the control men's brains in an area of the brain related to bodily perception.

Identifying as something doesn't mean you are that thing though, even if you coerce other people to support your delusion. Some identities are easier to assume than others. Not just because of practical considerations (no one can actually become a cat, for instance) but because some things are more socially acceptable than others. Look at what happened to Rachel Dolezal when she pretended to be black. But actually, the difference between skin colours is tiny compared to the difference between biological sexes.

Perhaps, like a lot of Americans have an Irish identity without having been to Ireland. But the point is, until something concrete happens to make it real, it's just wishful thinking. Nationality can be changed because it's an abstract, human-created concept. Age, sex and species can't because they're biological realities.

But I think we often have identity built on top of biology, if that makes sense. And identity is "real" in the sense that the psychological processes or structures involved are real. We can also have an identity buil around something false, made up, like being a Star Trek fan. So it seems like it's a ery flexible and malleable thing.

I am curious if people in the past seemed to be as concerned with this sort of thing. I'm sure they had some sense of identity, but I wonder if t wasn't a bit more immediate?

People absolutely can have a French identity without being a citizen of France

Perhaps, like a lot of Americans have an Irish identity without having been to Ireland. But the point is, until something concrete happens to make it real, it's just wishful thinking. Nationality can be changed because it's an abstract, human-created concept. Age, sex and species can't because they're biological realities.

There are many disorders that cannot be explained or seen, how can you be so sure that transgender people are not suffering from a hidden malfunction at birth of being born with the mismatched reproductive organs and chromosomes?

I get where you're coming from and for what it's worth I'm not closed to the idea that medical science will discover some biological basis for trans identities in the future. And for what it's worth i don't think trans people are lying about what they feel or experience, whether or not they're dysphoric I'm happy to believe that they're all reporting their feelings honestly. I believe that they are experiencing something real, and I understand that they believe those feelings represent a "gender identity" and a knowledge of what it's like to be the opposite sex. I believe Christians as well when they tell me that they experience a soul and a personal relationship with God. Maybe one day medical science will find a basis for those feelings as well. But until that day comes I have to take reality as I find it. There is no science to support the idea that a gender identity exists, just like there's no science to support the existence of a soul. And even if there was it wouldn't prove that transwomen literally are women just like a soul wouldn't prove a God exists. So until then, while I support everyone's right to believe whatever they want to believe I don't want either gender beliefs or religion influencing legislation, dictating medical and social policy, or being taught as fact in schools. Not believing in an innate gender doesn't mean I'm denying trans people exist or are lying any more than being an atheist means I'm denying Christians exist. I believe them on the "what", I just think they're wrong about the "why".

I think people found it hard to understand the whole ‘Adam and Steve’ concept when they themselves did not feel it

The difference here for me is that I do experience a sexuality. I understand feeling attracted to the opposite sex so it's no leap to understand feeling attracted to the same sex. But I don't experience a "gender identity" - I have no sense of woman-ness beyond an observation of my biology. I say I have a female body because that's the label given to the phenotype I have, and I call myself a woman because it's a synonym for AHF. Everything else is just my personality, there is no "intrinsic woman-ness" to any of my thoughts, feelings, or interests. They've been shaped to a degree by my socialisation, which I received on the basis of my biology, but they aren't innate. It's less like a homosexual person explaining their sexuality to a heterosexual person, and more like them trying to explain it to an asexual person. But even in that case it's pretty easy to explain. Given that a "gender identity" is something supposedly every person has, and we are all aware of it to the degree that we can tell if it matches our biological sex, and it's so important that it's the ultimate measure of reality over biological sex, I don't think it's a huge ask that just one person should be able to give some kind of coherent explanation for what it actually means. Ironically the most coherent description I've heard so far is Suzie Green's "being a cis woman means you're like Princess barbie" Jelly Baby thing. That makes sense to me. The down side is that if that's the case I've never ever met a "cis gendered woman" and I doubt I ever will. So if the big POMO revelation is just that not all women like pink - yeh, congrats to them, most of us already figured that out.

I think there was a study recently that said trans brains align more closely to that of their desired sex.

I've read a lot of these "lady brain" studies and what they actually show is that certain elements of transwomen's brains (not the entire brain) align more closely with that of the brains of women in the control group than that of the men in the control group, but that over all those elements of the brains of men and transwomen were more similar to each other than either were to women's brains. All the studies I've read suffered the same methodological problems of small sample size (tens of people) and didn't take confounders into account (most notably sexuality). It's also worth noting that our brains are so plastic that even study participants who spent a week at a mindfullness course had brain differences detected afterwards which distinguished them from the control group, so it's hardly surprising that transwomen would have a few minor brain differences. If there's a compelling study out there though I'd love to see it.

I find it interesting that people are so sure of themselves that man=man and there’s nothing else too it?

I don't claim absolute certainty over anything. But at the end of the day, even if they come up with some new medical discovery that lets us create a definition of "woman" that includes transwomen and women but excludes transmen and men, it won't change the underlying problem. Transwomen will still be bigger, stronger, have penises, and be physical indistinguishable from men therefore giving them a male socialisation and making it impossible to determine who is and isn't a threat. They'll still outstrip women in sports and be a danger in prisons. The science behind it, whilst interesting, would have very little practical application.

I know. Bloody weetabix on an island

Anyway I think it’s also a class thing to be sure

Nobody I know and I am ordinary like maybe some people go to,college but not to uni. They are pretty happy working and don’t sit alone on reddit and angsting

About their identities

It doesn’t even enter anybody I know the fact that they might be a transgender person.

Badly explained but anyway

Interesting! I'm assuming they do not suffer from dysphoria, though - do they? Is it just a fashion/special thing? What do you see going on?

They claim to, but I think it's a combination of a youth fad, confusion about gender stereotypes and sex roles and comorbid psychological issues.

I see them needing attention and control over their environments and over others. Desiring to be part of a community. And channeling all their feelings into hating people (mostly us GC types) who they perceive would deny them it.

No, because nationality goes beyond individual belief. But there are things they could do to become French, e.g. apply for citizenship. Abstract identities can be changed.

I tend to think that the formation of identity is more complex than that. People absolutely can have a French identity without being a citizen of France, for example, and in some cases we might even say that French identity is a reason to give people citizenship - because what does citizenship actually mean? Or being a member of an ethnic community, or being black? Even things that seem to have a strong biological basis like being gay or being autistic is an identity that can only form if there is a conceptualisation related to it, and that's not always the case.

And we don't always have control over the way our identity is formed. I'd even say, we may never have much control over it. If I identify as Canadian or British or French or Anglo-Saxon etc is really down to the vagaries of history. In a way I'm all of those things, but they don't all inform my sense of identity.

I think this goes beyond the trans question, a lot of young people seem to be struggling with it - teen years always seem to be a time for that, but somehow right now it seems a little fragile somehow. That could go some way to explaining some of the underlying issues.

Not going with Lang. Her food likes are disgusting

littlbrowndog, I don’t like Weetabix.